Russia has urged the United Nations’ highest court to dismiss a case brought by Georgia, accusing Moscow of human rights violations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Israel has annexed thousands of hectares of West Bank land beside the barrier it is building, according to an Israeli rights group.

Two Israeli rights groups have accused their government of tearing Palestinian families apart by curtailing the right to live in the West Bank.

A member of the pro-Syrian opposition in Lebanon has been killed in a car bombing south-east of the capital, Beirut, security officials have said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- An earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale jolted the port city of Bandar Khamir in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan on wednesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- A rebel group has released one of a group of Iranian policemen it said it kidnapped in southeastern Iran in June, a police commander said on Tuesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said Tehran is engaged in talks with Chinese and Indian oil and gas companies to develop energy reserves in the Caspian Sea in northern Iran.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran protested Tuesday against Israeli threats to kidnap President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and use force against the Islamic Republic, declaring that it would not hesitate to act in self-defense.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian oil ministry said that it is constructing the country’s first petrochemical park in Assaluyeh energy zone in southern Iran.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The United States does not expect Iran to receive a Russian air defense system this year, a Pentagon official said on Tuesday of the shield that would make any strike on Tehran’s nuclear sites more difficult